Together, Alone
by Kihin Ranno
Summary: The Doctor has a question for the Guardian of Time.


Together, Alone  
Doctor Who/Sailor Moon  
by Kihin Ranno  
2011  
1/1

"I have a question."

Pluto pursed her lips. It was an unfamiliar voice for a familiar man (assuming one could comfortably call him a man), but she would have recognized it anywhere. Its timbre quaked with the secret knowledge of nine centuries; she could hear it no matter how innocuous his statements. She knew him from this and his lack of concern for sneaking up on a Sailor Senshi with a key large and deadly enough to turn his brain to mush if she were of a mind to do so.

And of course, he'd found his way to the gate in the first place.

Sailor Pluto turned, appraising his newest face. He looked younger than the last time she'd seen him, which meant this personality was probably more vain. The ears were certainly an improvement, but she wasn't sure about the fashion. "Red trainers. Chic."

The Doctor ignored her, barreling on as if she hadn't spoken, but this was hardly new. "What exactly do you _do_ all day?"

"We've been over this," she reminded him.

He leaned forward with a grin. "Can you be sure of that? All the wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey out of order... stuff?"

"Articulate as ever," she quipped, biting her cheek to keep from smiling back. "I am familiar with the... timey-wimey, Doctor. To my estimation, this is your fifth time seeing me. Unfortunately, it is my seventh."

"Unfortunately?"

"Last time, the TARDIS landed on Small Lady's tea set." Pluto took a long, steadying breath. The memory could still give her a migraine. There were certain people who should not be allowed to spend time together. The Doctor and Small Lady, to her estimation, fit the bill perfectly.

The Doctor beamed, predictably delighted at the prospect of meeting the heir of the planet Earth. "She sounds brilliant!"

On this, Pluto could not disagree. "Your question? I'm afraid I forgot."

He scoffed. "As if you forget anything. You just don't want to answer."

Pluto hated that she couldn't fool him. To be fair, she hadn't tried so very hard. She wondered if he upset her inner balance that much or if she simply didn't have the patience to try. She had her suspicions. "Doctor, you are perfectly aware that I guard the Time Gate."

"Well, YES, but what do you... do? Just stand there? Play chess with yourself?"

Pluto smirked. "Oh, Venus would love to have heard you said that."

The Doctor frowned, trying to place her in his memory. "Venus, Venus... Have I met her?"

"Apparently not." She chuckled. "Something for me to look forward to. It's always nice to see you out of your depth."

Strangely, the Doctor seemed less thrilled at this potential meeting. Her smile must have been truly alarming. "No, but really. What do you do?"

She gave him a hard look, perhaps harder than she should have. It was so difficult to soften her edges where he was concerned. "Not everyone has an inability to stand still for ten minutes and feels the urge to jump from century to century at the drop of a hat."

He smiled at her. It could have brightened the sun. "Oh, I like that! Well, Donna would _actually_ like that! Oye, Do-"

The Doctor turned as if to relay this information to a companion waiting in the TARDIS, but then stopped and his face fell.

Pluto's heart lurched. His friends always met such tragic ends. She wondered how he had lost this one.

She wondered if he realized how irresponsible she thought he was.

"I'm sorry," she said, swallowing her lecture, knowing it would get her nowhere. It was an argument they'd had before. He knew the risks, but he couldn't abide the loneliness. Perhaps he had a point. It wasn't as if she wanted him to be just like her, not really.

It was just that sometimes, when she pretended to be young or allowed herself a moment of self pity, she hated that he had a choice.

They all had their vices and ways of coping. Hating him was hers.

Unfortunately, so was loving him.

"Yes, well," he sighed. He turned back to her. So much pain in his eyes - enough to douse a star. And hadn't she just thought he could bring a sun to life?

Not for the first time, Pluto wished she were more like Usagi. Usagi could have made him smile and healed his wounds. Usagi could make him forget there was anything to be sad about.

Well, Pluto could at least try, she supposed.

"Sometimes I sing."

He paused. "Do you? Didn't know you could."

"Everyone _can_," she emphasized. "As for skill, I must admit to being somewhat lacking."

The Doctor laughed, though not whole-heartedly. "Anything else?"

Pluto inhaled deeply. These were not things she talked about normally.

But the Doctor was not normal. The Doctor was not her friend, and he wasn't her enemy either. He was just the only one to whom she could whisper these secrets.

"I recite speeches from forgotten plays... or poems that burned to ash and floated into the ether. I laugh at the innocuous errors history books make, and rage at the lies that have become truth. I look in the caves and ditches that hold the lost treasures of the centuries. I wonder if anyone will ever think to look for them. I remember the true faces of the disguised geniuses in our history, and I pity how bitterly they hate their impostors. I search for reasons behind the start of every war. I find nothing."

The Doctor waited a moment to see if she would continue, but she had nothing more to say. It was not all she did, but it was all she would tell. Other meetings would come, and he'd probably ask her the same question. She couldn't have the same answer.

So there was nothing but the silence of Time swirling around them, which was not silent at all. They were simply the only two people who could hear it.

"You watch. You reflect. You guard," he surmised.

"I have told you."

He exhaled sharply, thrusting his hands into his pockets. Just hearing about that much stillness made him want to run. "How do you stand it? Staying in one place, all alone?"

She smiled knowingly. Did he want to be more like her? More still. Foolish man. He could stand still as well as he could be alone. They were both lost causes. Better that they both found a way to accept it.

"You select an uneventful century and allow yourself to go quietly insane," she instructed. "Then you pick up the pieces and learn to be lonely."

He shuddered, looked ill.

He should have known better than to ask. She had no answers for him. None that would have helped anyway.

She turned her back, ending the conversation. "We are more different than similar, Doctor. You can not be as I am. Don't aspire to it."

It was so quiet for a moment that she almost fooled herself into thinking he was gone.

"I love them," he murmured. "All of them. But I always leave them, one way or another."

She wondered how much he wrecked his Donna, if this latest catastrophe had sent him running to her. Then she decided it was better not to know.

"I love people too, you know," she said.

"Of course you do," he answered, his voice growing more distant. "How else could you stand this?"

Finally, he left her. The TARDIS whined, then vanished.

They were alone again.


End file.
